Bangalore, the city of gardens, hasn't been so in a while as of now and that has a lots of reasons backing up. It maybe due to ever increasing population, ever raising number of vehicles and so on. Once called the Pensioners' Paradise, the city has now became the Garbage City and will soon become very unsustainable. This is something that fears us a lot, because, Bangalore is always the city we love the most!
Recently, adding to all the problems of the city has regarding sustainability, the Government of Karnataka had planned to add one more; The Elevated Corridor. This is a project which was once opposed by now CM of Karnataka, got approved within a matter of a few hours and went to an extent of calling tenders! Whereas, it took 5 long years for Namma Metro Phase 3 to be approved! EC is a project which could end up deserting the city, cutting down almost 3000 trees! This project was pushed by the GoK under the name NavaBengalooru. But, the civilians of the city woke up at the right moment to save the city from becoming a concrete jungle. EC was also about to consume a major portion of Cubbon Park, the lung of the city, was opposed like anything by the environmentalists.
On 16th March 2019, many civilian organisations of Bangalore came up with a protest against this unsustainable 'development'. Around 3000 people were assembled near Gandhi Statue near Maurya Junction of Central Bangalore. The protest came after Karnataka Road Development Corporation Ltd. floated a tender on March 4 for the Phase 1 of N-S corridor from Baptist Hospital, Hebbal to Silk Board without public consultation. The major demand of the people assembled was to replace Metro with EC along the proposed route and cancel the tender of EC. The Tweetathon that happened a couple of days prior to the protest, led by the citizen group, Citizens for Bangalore(CfB), came up a lot of creative statements in favour of sustainable city. There are a lot of questions regarding the carrying capacity of the ECs, which may end up 'inefficient' by the time it is opened to public use. The public also demanded for Metro first, then EC.
After all the hatred, on 19th March, many organisations met the CM, who claimed that his first preference was to make the city liveable and his first preference is for public transport. Terming CM's response as 'swift and spontaneous,' a statement from the citizens' group said, "At the end of the dialogue, he agreed to hold wide ranging and open public consultations on the issues of mobility itself in future." There were also some independent research reports which claimed that the Metro will be the best and sustainable option possible. Days after embracing the heat, the meet between the civilian groups and the CM of Karnataka ended up fruitful for the civilian groups. The CM has also agreed to personally review the alternative proposals given by the IISc Professor, Ashish Verma.
So, finally, the Government has listened to the voice of the people of the city and this can be marked as the first victory of the people of the city and yet another step towards a sustainable Bangalore.
Please do feel free to use Comments section to share your valuable thoughts. Also, try to guess what might be the fate of Bangalore with and without EC!
No comments:
Post a Comment